The Perversion Trilogy: Perversion, Possession & Permission

by T. M. Frazier

  “Uh…” Haze says, looking down at his phone.

  “What fucking now?” I ask.

  Haze leans forward, resting his elbows on the table. “Hate to even bring this up now, but I just got a text from the human internet himself, and it’s not good, brother.”

  I immediately know who he’s referring to. Preppy’s younger brother and a genius hacker who goes by the name of Nine.

  Haze continues, “Nine hacked into the police reports from the night we were taken in. Lemming might have told you about Belly being murdered, but he failed to mention something else.” He shows me the picture on the screen. It’s several bricks of H. Next to the drugs are plastic yellow triangles with letters marking the evidence. None of this is new, but when I look closer, there is something startling about the picture. A small shamrock pressed into the packaging on the side of each of the bricks.

  I blow out a breath of frustration. “That’s not cartel heroin.”

  Haze turns his Bedlam ring around on his finger. “No, which means it’s not Marco’s.”

  “Then who the fuck does it belong to?” Sandy asks, coming back into the room with his thumb paused over the keypad.

  I scrub my hand over my jaw. “It’s fucking Irish.”

  Sandy’s eyes widen. “We may run guns for the clan but we don’t push their H. You think they’re the ones that set us up instead of Marco?”

  “Clan Egan has no reason to pick a fight with Bedlam,” I explain. “That wouldn’t make any sense.”

  “Uhhhhh,” Sandy says, rocking on his feet.

  “Spit it out, Sandy,” I order. “What do you know.”

  He takes a deep breath. “I talked to Bear after we got out of the clink. I didn’t think anything of it until right fucking now. But the word is that Callum Egan is on the rampage. One of his shipments was hijacked in Miami a couple of months back.”

  “Shit,” I swear. “It’s only a matter of time before he finds out that Bedlam was arrested with his stolen H.” I pause as realization hits. “Marco. That son of a fucking bitch. He knows he can’t take us down himself, so he steals a shipment of H from the clan and plants it on us.”

  “He wants the Irish to do his dirty work for him,” Haze says, tapping his fingers on the table. “That way not only does he take us down…”

  “But he gets the Clan’s gun business as well,” Marci finishes.

  Sandy tugs at his hair. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

  I ball my fists pound them against the table. I lean forward, bracing myself. “We need to get ahead of this shit before it blows up in our fucking faces.”

  “I know Callum,” Marci says. “He may not be a rational man, but he’s a reasonable one.” She smiles confidently. “Let me handle him, son. You focus on Emma Jean.”

  “Marci,” Sandy starts. “Maybe, while this is all going on you should go— “

  Marci plants herself in front of Sandy, pointing an accusing finger his way. “I swear to fucking Christ, Sandy, if you’re about to tell me I should go somewhere or cower or do whatever it is you want me to do until this is over or some other sexist shit, I’ll cut your goddamned balls off myself. There’s no time to compare dick sizes here, but if we did, you should know, my hypothetical dick has been around much longer than yours and it’s much fucking bigger.”

  Sandy raises his hands in surrender. “I believe you.”

  Marci pulls down on the hem of her shirt and flips her hair out of her eyes. “I’ll reach out to Callum. I’ll be here holding it down until you get back.” Her expression goes slack. “I’m the foundation of this house and I’ll continue to hold it up like I always have, but it’s up to you to make sure it doesn’t burn down.”

  Thirty minutes later, I’m standing before my men gathered in the war room behind my office. We’re a group of thirty tonight, and although it’s only a fraction of what Los Muertos has behind the gates of the compound, we don’t need men, we need skill. And we have it in spades. These men are the best of Bedlam. Most are former military. Some were special forces.

  A room full of trained killers, thanks to good ole’ Uncle Sam.

  It’s the first time since Belly died that I’ve had them all in front of me in an official capacity, and it feels wrong that Belly’s not here, but right all at the same time, which isn’t how I was expecting it to feel. And although this mission is for Tricks, a small part of me wants to prove to Belly he wasn’t wrong by leaving Bedlam in the hands of a man who up until the age of sixteen didn’t even speak.

  “Marco has my girl,” I start. The room grows quiet.

  “You got a woman?” a man asks from the back of the room. “Like a real one?”

  I’m about to answer, but Sandy beats me to it and gets right to the point. There are none of his usual jokes or antics. He’s all business tonight. “Grim calls her Tricks. Some of you might know her by her affiliation with Los Muertos. She also goes by EJ or her full name, Emma Jean Parish.”

  Sandy holds up a blown-up picture of her from the casino security camera, then hands out black and white photocopies the men pass around.

  “I know some of you are wondering why Grim’s woman is an affiliate of Los Muertos, so listen up because I’m only going to say this once. Grim met her a long time ago, and then, she disappeared. He’s been looking for her for over five years, and they recently reconnected. Little did he know that the entire time he was looking for her, she’d been held as a prisoner against her will right here in Lacking by Marco and Los Muertos. We have reason to believe that she’s in danger, and a whole fuck of a lot of it since we’re pretty sure Marco has learned of her connection to Grim.”

  I lean over and grasp the back of the chair in front of me. My knuckles go white as Sandy’s words land square in the center of my chest like a goddamned battering ram.

  “Why?” Rollo asks, his deep, booming voice vibrates from the back of the room. Rollo is a beast and a head taller than most men. His voice literally travels right over everyone’s heads. “What does Marco want from her?”

  I shake my head. “Not sure. He’s obsessed with her. That’s all we know. Any other reason he has doesn’t matter. Not right now anyway.”

  Rollo crosses his arms over his big chest. “But then again, it’s Marco. He’s a fucking sociopath. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have a reason for most of the stupid shit he does.”

  “True,” I say. “But we still need to be careful. The most important part of all of this is getting Tricks out of Los Muertos alive.”

  “You boys are gonna need a lot of firepower,” Marci says, entering the room.

  “Gonna need a lot of everything,” I add. “Weapons are on the way.”

  I take a deep breath and look around the room to all of my brothers. I ask myself what Belly would say if he were still here. The answer comes to me instantly in the form of his voice and his words as clear as if he were standing next to me. I’ve lost too many men. But none who didn’t know beforehand that losing their lives was a possibility.

  “Storming Los Muertos without a doubt means war,” I begin. “War leaves a bloody and twisted tangle of corpses in its path. The dead are the ones who suffer the consequences of their leader’s failure to negotiate terms. So, that being said, let me make something very fucking clear. I’m not standing up here demanding that you fight this war with me, brothers. This war is of my own making. It’s not what I want for you. It’s definitely not what Tricks wanted. She’s only there now because she wanted to avoid all of this. But it’s her I’m fighting for, and although she might have been forced to wear yellow, she’s my family just as much as any of you in this room, if not more. Going in there means there’s a possibility you won’t come back out breathing. Anyone who wants out of this can opt out. I’m not demanding you fight this one with me…I’m asking.”

  “You’re family. My brother. If you say Tricks is family, that’s all I need to know,” Sandy says. “I’m in. You know that. Always.”

  I nod, feeling grateful for my
brother’s support.

  “No doubt you’d do it for any one of us. No question. I’m in,” Haze says, standing beside me.

  “This is ridiculous!” shouts Trent, one of our men who helps with security at the casino. All eyes look to him. He smiles. “It shouldn’t be a question. We are all here because we’re all Bedlam. That motherfucker’s got your girl. If you’re going in, we all are. We fight for Bedlam. Always.” He laughs, but when it fades, his face grows serious. He leans forward with his hands on the table, lowering his voice to a deep whisper. “I’m so fucking in.”

  The rest of the room erupts in the sound of chairs sliding back and the words “I’m in” being repeated in rapid succession.

  “My life!” Sandy cries with his fist in the air.

  The rest of the men close their fists and pound them against their chest while they join in on the rest of the Bedlam oath. “My death. My honor. My loyalty. For Bedlam. For Brotherhood. For always!” The oath feeds both my determination and my fury. Snaking inside my ears and exploding inside my body with a power unlike any I’ve ever felt before.

  I stand tall, and the feeling of power surges into an overwhelming surge of pride, swelling in my chest as I look around the room at my brothers who are now arming themselves with every weapon in our arsenal. These men, men who are willing to risk their lives for both me and Tricks, pull guns from the table and blades from hooks on the walls and other more inventive weapons like axes and brass knuckles from hiding spots beneath the floorboards.

  Sandy clasps his hand on my shoulder. “Looks like we’re about to show Los Muertos the meaning of their own fucking name.”

  I nod. “Once we get in there,” I start, remembering the reminder Belly always gave us before we headed out. I pause while the men quiet down to listen. “No killing kids. Or women, unless they shoot first. Understood?”

  The men nod in agreement and continue to arm themselves.

  “What about everyone else?” Haze asks, brushing his long beard with the barrel of his gun.

  I check to make sure my own gun is loaded.

  Click. Click. Clack.

  “Everyone else fucking dies.”

  Sandy and Haze leave to get the vans from the storage garage while my men and I finish making sure every weapon we have is Los Muertos killing ready.

  The door in the back of the room opens with a creak, and the room grows silent. Guns being loaded are paused in mid-air. The men part like Moses just entered the room, reverently making room for whoever just walked in. When he’s clear of the last man and standing at the opposite end of the long table from me, I’m able to get a good look at him. I recognize him instantly, even though it’s been a while since I’ve seen him. His dark hair is short on the sides. The top is usually slightly longer, but it’s hiding under his plain black baseball cap. The man is larger than life and all muscle, and when he cracks his knuckles, his biceps flex and strain under his tight v-neck t-shirt. He’s wearing all black from head to toe, but what sets him apart are the black studded leather belts he wears wrapped around his forearms. I know this man. Those belts aren’t decorations.

  They’re weapons.

  Weapons I’ve seen him wrap around a neck or two during the few occasions Belly had brought me with him up to Logan’s Beach for reasons that always started with killing and ended with one fuck of a good party.

  “King,” I greet, with a tip of my chin.

  King walks around the table and more men move aside to give him room to pass. “Grim,” he returns.

  “Didn’t expect you here.” If I sound surprised, it’s because I am. King is otherwise known as The King of the Causeway in Logan’s Beach. He’s got his own problems to solve. His own operation to run. Plus, he’s a family man now with a wife and a gaggle of kids.

  King lights a cigarette and tucks the pack into his back pocket. “Bear called me from his ride to Atlanta. He said you might be in need of an extra hand.” He looks at the weapons on the table, and in the hands and holsters of my men. “Or gun.”

  I nod. “Bear’s right. The more guns and fingers willing to pull triggers the better, but I thought you went legit?”

  He shrugs. “I got people to believe I did. That’s all that matters.” King blows out the smoke. “But I’m here because Belly always came through for me in a pinch. Sorry to hear about him, by the way. He was a good one. I wanted to come to the service, but my girl was in the hospital giving me another beautiful mouth to feed,” he says with a crooked smile and arching a scarred eyebrow.

  I’m not in a celebratory mood, but I manage to say, “Congrats, man.”

  He looks me over like he’s taking me in. Thinking. “Thanks,” he says. “But do me a favor, and say that to me again when this is all over and you mean it. There’ll be plenty of time for all the catching up shit later.” He picks up one of the larger semi-automatic guns from the table, testing the weight of it in his hands with his cigarette dangling from his lips. He takes it from his mouth and scratches the stubble on his jaw. He locks his dark green eyes on me. “Bear said your woman’s in trouble. That right?”

  I light my own cigarette. “I wish it weren’t.”

  King blows smoke out through his nose. He straps the gun to his back. “Then, what’s the motherfucking plan?”

  It’s a simple one. “Kill them all, and hope she’s still fucking breathing when it’s done.”

  King tightens the belts around his arms. “I know how this feels, man. Trust me. I know, and it ain’t fuckin’ good.” He points his cigarette at my chest. “But trust me when I say it’s going to feel a fuck of a lot better when you’re killing all the people standing between you and her.”

  I strap my own gun to my back while the rest of the men start taking the weapons outside to load them into the vans. “I’m not sure of a lot right now, man. But of that…” I raise my hood. “I have no fucking doubt.”

  Thirteen

  Young lovers, kept apart by the feuding of their families, stole kisses in secret. Behind barns. In the middle of pastures. In the confession booth after Sunday Mass.

  One night they met under a full moon. They made their way out of town and were married in secret with only the minister’s wife and grown daughters as witnesses.

  They consummated their love in a hayloft of the minister’s barn while whispering words of forever and planning their future.

  In the morning they reassured one another that everything would be fine. They planned to tell their families what they’d done that very afternoon.

  As they walked hand in hand back to town, confident in their love and their families forgiveness, a fire brigade raced passed them on the road.

  It turns out they didn’t have to tell their families at all.

  A plume of black smoke filled the sky right above where the ministers house had been.

  They knew.

  As a result of my shitty circumstances even my fictional escapes are becoming more and more hopeless.

  Mona enters the room as if to drive home that very point.

  I didn’t think it was possible to hate someone just as much as I hate Marco, especially someone I share a history with, but it is. I hate everything about her, and after I’m free, I’m going to make sure she feels every bit of that hatred.

  Her gaze darts to my naked body. She has a fixed look of disgust written all over her face. At first, I think it could be because I’m tied up and battered, but her gaze lingers, roaming from my breasts to between my legs and back again. It’s not disgust. It’s something else. Something more. Mona’s eyes darken, but this time not with her usual evil, but with...lust? Holy shit, it is, it’s lust.

  I don’t have time to be surprised by her reaction or sexual orientation. I’m sure if I searched the corners of my mind, I would see the signs written in the past, but I don’t have time for that shit right now. If she were anyone else, maybe someone who wasn’t out to kill or torture me, I’d congratulate her and support her by telling her to live her truth, but Mona is
n’t anyone else. And she is down for the kill and/or torture of my person. Plus, I’ve been looking for a way to gain Mona’s trust in order to escape, and the look she’s just given me might be the wedge in the door to my escape. It’s up to me to blow that door off the fucking hinges.

  “Do you remember when we were younger and you and I used to play hide and seek with Gabby in the backyard of our foster home?” I ask with false hesitancy, looking at the floor as I speak.

  Mona looks up and appears startled, like she’s been caught doing something she shouldn’t. She pauses for a second, then nods because I don’t think she knows what else to do. She’s off guard and hasn’t yet had time yet to put her angry psychopath persona back in place. I have to act fast.

  I continue, “Do you remember we’d leave Gabby counting beside the shed outside while we went inside to watch TV? How long was she out there, searching for us while we watched Hannah Montana reruns?”

  “A long time,” she says. “At least, two or three episodes.” Her lips flatten suddenly, as if she realizes she’d been smiling.

  I keep my words small and my voice low. “I liked watching TV with you. You knew all the words to the songs,” I say on an almost whisper, recalling every last memory I have of our childhood. Any truth I can use as ammunition to load my gun of lies. I just hope the bullets will be strong enough to penetrate the evil surrounding Mona’s black heart.

  That is, if she even still has one.

  “What are you trying to do here?” she asks skeptically, pursing her lips.

  I let my gaze trail up her body and press my teeth into my bottom lip. “You’ve grown up a lot since then,” I say, before looking away toward the door as if I’m embarrassed by my confession, all the while ignoring her question as if I’m too caught up in our conversation to acknowledge it’s been asked.

  “So, did you,” she says slowly. “But you didn’t answer me. What are you getting at, EJ? What’s your angle?”